Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles eBook

TO THE VESTALS

XXX

Those priests which first
the vestal fire begun,
Which might be borrowed from
no earthly flame,
Devised a vessel to receive
the sun,
Being stedfastly opposed to
the same;
Where with sweet
wood laid curiously by art,
On which the sun might by
reflection beat,
Receiving strength for every
secret part,
The fuel kindled with celestial
heat.
Thy blessed eyes,
the sun which lights this fire,
My holy thoughts, they be
the vestal flame,
Thy precious odours be my
chaste desires,
My breast’s the vessel
which includes the same;
Thou art my Vesta,
thou my goddess art,
Thy hallowed temple
only is my heart.

TO THE CRITICS

XXXI

Methinks I see some crooked
mimic jeer,
And tax my Muse with this
fantastic grace;
Turning my papers asks, “What
have we here?”
Making withal some filthy
antic face.
I fear no censure
nor what thou canst say,
Nor shall my spirit one jot
of vigour lose.
Think’st thou, my wit
shall keep the packhorse way,
That every dudgeon low invention
goes?
Since sonnets
thus in bundles are imprest,
And every drudge doth dull
our satiate ear,
Think’st thou my love
shall in those rags be drest
That every dowdy, every trull
doth wear?
Up to my pitch
no common judgment flies;
I scorn all earthly
dung-bred scarabies.

TO THE RIVER ANKOR

XXXII

Our floods’ queen, Thames,
for ships and swans is crowned,
And stately Severn for her
shore is praised;
The crystal Trent for fords
and fish renowned,
And Avon’s fame to Albion’s
cliff is raised.
Carlegion Chester
vaunts her holy Dee;
York many wonders of her Ouse
can tell;
The Peak, her Dove, whose
banks so fertile be;
And Kent will say her Medway
doth excel.
Cotswold commends
her Isis to the Thame;
Our northern borders boast
of Tweed’s fair flood;
Our western parts extol their
Wilis’ fame;
And the old Lea brags of the
Danish blood.
Arden’s
sweet Ankor, let thy glory be,
That fair Idea
only lives by thee!

TO IMAGINATION

XXXIII

Whilst yet mine eyes do surfeit
with delight,
My woful heart imprisoned
in my breast,
Wisheth to be transformed
to my sight,
That it like those by looking
might be blest.
But whilst mine
eyes thus greedily do gaze,
Finding their objects over-soon
depart,
These now the other’s
happiness do praise,
Wishing themselves that they
had been my heart,
That eyes were
heart, or that the heart were eyes,
As covetous the other’s